un u . ... .. .. .. ,. .;.: - '.:>;Z ;. .. :. - ,- := '\/P?" .....-;5C. "Y' t'r :{ ::'.: ...-'... ., .. :_'" --.---- ::; ::::* .:........... .- ,.""''''; _.----- -: '. _ . . < ---... . . .' . t['j) . .. .. . .. . ":. ',':' "','.:,.., t;j Llh, the ecstasy of moving all the right muscle groups. " . . head." As it came from his mouth Dylan felt he'd betrayed Rachel, played her like a card he didn't mind losing. "Yeah, well, speaking of which, my moms kicked my father out for smoking drugs," Mingus said. Having chipped in his own disaster, he went mute. Possibly mentioning anyone's moms out loud, even your own, was miscalculation enough to blow an afternoon You were never ineligible for a screwup like that-say the unsayable word and watch it foul the sk)r. Then you were right back where you didn't want to be. Pinned to the grid. A white boy with no moms, squirm- ing in the glare. Yoked. Yo mama. Mingus made the pipe disappear into his jacket. The two of them clambered back up the grade, scaled the fence eas- il)T, and in silence walked home, putting the Promenade behind them. Though Dylan was ready now to be offered the EI Marko, ready to uncap the pinned-out, purple-soaked felt and feel it flow under his own hand, to discover his own graffiti name and to plop it dripping on the sides of lampposts beside Mingus's "Dose," they tagged nothing. Mingus's hands remained buried in the pockets of the jacket, fists pushed in to the lining to 74 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 28, 2003 grip the lighter and the pipe and the EI Marko so they didn't clank together as they bounced against his thighs. Leaf still in his hair. T he first day of seventh grade Dylan stood on the slate in front of Min- gus Rude's stoop, waiting. If Mingus would walk with him up Dean Street to Court, walk through the doors of the school with him, side by side, everything might be different. Women trudged little kids to kinder- garten at the Y or moved alone up Nevins to the subwa)T. A bunch of black girls swept up :&om the projects to high school. They shared a cigarette for breakfast, rumbled around the corner in a ball of smoke and laughter. It was the first day of school everywhere in the world, possibl)T. Only one thing wrong with this pic- ture, as the block cleared, the bus breathed past, a dog barked in a cycle like code: Dylan standing in long pants and with his backpack full of unmined binder pages and dumb pencils. He felt like an apple skinned for inspection, already souring in the sun. Those dogs could tell and prob- ably anybody else, too: he stank of panic. Dylan should have planned it with Mingus in advance, he saw now. Up the stoop, he rang the bell. He rang it again, shifting in his Keds, anxious, time ticking away, the day and the prospect of seventh grade rapidly spoiling with him in the sun. Then, like an irrational puppet, pan- icked, he leaned on the doorbell and let it ring in a continuous trill. He was still ringing it when the door opened It wasn't Mingus but Barrett Rude,]r., in a white bathrobe, naked underneath, unhidden to the street, arms braced in the door, looking down. Face clotted with sleep, he blinked in the slanted, scour- ing light. He lifted his arm to cover his eyes with shade, looking like he wanted to wave the day off as a bad idea, a pass- ing mistake. "Hell you doing, Little Dylan?" Dylan took a step backward from the door. "Don't never be ringing my doorbell seven in the morning, man." " M . " lngus- "You'll see Mingus at the got-damn school." Barrett Rude was waking into his anger, his voice like a cloud of ham- " G f h " mers. et out 0 ere now. I t was entirely possible that one song could destroy your life. Yes, musical doom could fall on a lone human form and crush it like a bug. The song, that song, was sent from somewhere else to find you, to pick the scab of your whole existence. The song was your personal shitty fate, manifest as a throb of pop floating out of radios everywhere. At the very least the song was the soundtrack to your destruction, the theme. Your days reduced to a montage cut to its cowbell beat, inexorable doubled bass line and raunch vocal, a sort of chanted sneer, surrounded by groans of pleasure. The stutter and blurt of what tuba? French horn? Rhythm guitar and trumpet, pitched to mockery: The singer might as well have held a gun to your head. How could it have been allowed to happen, how could it have been allowed on the radio? That song ought to be illegal. It wasn't racist- you'll never sort that one out, don't even start--so much as anti-you. les they were dancing, and singing / and movin'to the groovin' / and just when it hit me / somebody turned around and shouted- Every time your sneakers met the street, the end of that summer, somebody was hurling it at your head, that song. September 4, 1976, the week Dylan Ebdus began seventh grade in the main